


Robbin' Robin

by vitoliel



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Gang Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Slow Build, Street-Gang AU, They don't meet through Batman, What-If, but they all end up the same place anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 23:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1917243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vitoliel/pseuds/vitoliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Wayne wasn't at Haley's Circus that night. Gotham claimed Richard Grayson as her own and he built his nest among the thieves and street rats. </p><p>(The batfamily still finds him anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Robin

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with children forced to make tough calls in difficult situations. I grew up in a city where child exploitation was just one of many daily realities and I draw from some of that experience. I tried to treat these issues as delicately as a I could, but please exercise caution when reading.

1.

Gotham is a mother. All cities are, but Gotham is a particularly psychotic mother, shielding her children in her shadows by holding them in gutters and rotten docks while her throat sparkles with city lights like diamonds and her hair flows with sewage water and pearls. Her crown jewel is the Batman. The precious stones that glitter around his onyx center are the Joker, the Wayne Tower, crime alley, and the industrial center.  Gotham is at once startlingly wealthy and horrendously poor.

Unlike most of Gotham’s children, Robin was adopted. His parents fell from a great height and _splat_ , adoption complete. Of course there was the custody battle as _Hayley’s Circus_ tried to reclaim the Grayson boy but Gotham was too powerful, too set. She already claimed the boy as _hers._

There was no Bruce Wayne to rescue him and so Gotham claimed him.

…

Winter set in Gotham like all other seasons – wet, bitter, and miserable. Ice hung off bushes like patterned lace and the snow fell in large flurries that melted as soon as they touched Robin’s skin. The boy stuck out his tongue to catch a drifting flake. The snow didn’t stick but melted as soon as it touched pavement in wet circles like raindrops. Robin wished it were rain because maybe it wouldn’t be so _cold._ The cold made his fingers stiff. If it were raining there would be more people with fewer coats and bulky jackets between him and their money. “Today is not a good day for this,” Robin rubbed his hands hard and blew on them.

“Its never a good day for this,” said Chris Does, called Bluebell for reasons known only to him, as he flicked some snow off his sleeve and scowled at the almost empty street. Bluebell was sixteen and lanky with elbows that were too sharp and legs that were too long. His fiery red hair was hidden beneath a cap pulled low over his eyes so if someone spotted him they’d only see a slender white boy in a too big coat and raggedy green gloves. “Damn it. The Tithe is due tomorrow.”

“Swearing not going to help anything,” Robin pushed off the wall and buried his hands in his pockets. One of them had a hole into the lining where he pushed random stuff he didn’t want to lose. “Maybe if we head closer to the Mall we’ll get something.”

“Yeah, something. Nothing like a knife in the ribs for Christmas. The Brickams claimed that spot last week.”

“Really?” Robin’s eyebrows furrowed and he leaned back against the wall. “I heard they already got the grocery on 9th.”

Bluebell spat on the ground. “Real greedy bastards, the lot of them. Charlie tried to snitch some from their plot and they broke her fingers. She had a hard time keeping the kids from starving until her hand healed. The Kains helped her out a bit and I gave her some of my stash.”

“Mmm,” Robin blew on his fingers to hide his smile. “I’m sure you did.”

Bluebell’s face flushed in angry splotches. “It wasn’t anything like that, Rob! God, get your mind out of the gutter. Charlie’d break me in half if I so much as tried to hold her hand.” He sounded proud. Robin just hummed in the most assuming way he could and pretended to ignore Bluebell’s steadily reddening ears.

Fact was the Tithe was creeping steadily closer and everyone was a few dollars short and every hour nearer to a day late. Robin closed his eyes and slid down onto his heels as a cold breeze kicked the snow into a tizzy. There was the rent on the room at the Quillia, the Tithe, and then there were his kids. Bobby, and Randy, and Mix, and Kitten, and Snaps, and Mark, and the other half a dozen pickpockets and street kids Robin took under his wing over the years. Half of them with siblings or parents to take care of. The other half used whatever dollars they got to stay alive. None of them could pay the Tithe.

Charlie announced her arrival with a scuff of too-big combat boots. The pint-sized girl stopped beside him and fished out a piece of ABC gum from behind her ear. “’Sup, Robin. Blue. Any luck?”

“Like a crook in the Batfry,” Bluebell eyed her suspiciously. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.” Charlie blew a bubble and eyed him right back.

When Charlie was eight some creep tried to grab her. She kicked, bit, and scratched him until in desperation the kidnapper grabbed her by her long brown hair and dragged her. Charlie got away through the timely intervention of some cops but luck like that didn’t happen in Gotham twice. She took her mother’s scissors to her hair and kept it in jagged short tuffs ever since.

The three of them watched the street for another half hour, occasionally standing or stomping their feet to get warm, but all the pedestrians were safely away in their houses. In the meantime, the sky darkened and Gotham’s bipolar whims shifted steadily toward dangerous. The three children exchanged looks and mutually agreed to go home. “Fuck this,” Charlie said quietly. “The lot of us is gonna have to hide on Saturday.”

“And Sunday. And Monday. A whole week of Mondays.” Bluebell’s hands clenched tight. “Fucking gangs and their fucking tithe.”

“At least it’s the Red Crows,” Robin said quietly. “The Scorps are likely to kill anyone who doesn’t pay up.” He closed his eyes. He breathed deep. “I’ll take responsibility for the little ones; if I say they’re a collective they’ll just go after me.”

Bluebell and Charlie exchanged an alarmed look. Charlie reached out and grabbed his sleeve. Her fingers were red and cracked from the cold. “Rob, no. The Reds already have it out for you ‘cause you quit running. If you go back like this they’ll tie you.”

“What other choice do I have?” Robin pushed her hand away gently. “Kitten and Snaps are eight. Mark’s ten. You really want to see them beaten up ‘cause they can’t spare fifty-four dollars?”

Charlie’s lips thinned and her eyes dropped. After a moment her fingers twisted into her shirt as she nodded to herself and lifted her chin. “I’ll claim them.”

The boys immediately protested.

“You’re already paying for Clive and Randy,” Bluebell said. “Plus your other girls. At thirty dollars to an extra head you’re already paying around three fifty and you already got a mark because you couldn’t pay for Clive last time. I’ve got twelve kids so I owe four hundred and change and I’m still thirty bucks short.” He ran a gloved hand through his hair. “I can’t take anymore. Robin… can you even afford three more? This isn’t like when you were a runner. They’re damned vicious on everyone who’s not one of them.”

Robin’s lips twisted as he thought. “It’s cold,” he said in lieu of answering. “I need to go talk to my kids before they head in for the night.” He grabbed the rung of a fire escape. The metal bit into his hands but he ignored it in favor of scrabbling up to the first deck.

“Robin, wait.” Bluebell stood below him. “I’ll try and scrounge up a little extra to help you out. Charlie and I… we’ll figure something out.”

Robin crouched down and smiled. “Just worry about your own kids, Blue. I was practically family with the Reds way back when.”

Charlie joined Bluebell below. “That’s what worries me, Robin. What if they’re still holding a grudge?” Charlie’s eyes were large in her small face, lipid against cheekbones that had been starved into model like beauty. In the glow of the streetlight she looked young and scared.

Robin lay down on his stomach and grabbed her hand through the railing. “Then I’ll go to Leslie’s and get a patch for a some broken ribs.” He smiled brightly. “Don’t you know, Charlie? A Robin always flies on top. Gotta go. Be safe, ‘kay?”

Bluebell snorted and tugged Charlie away. “We should be the ones saying that. Be careful not to slip on those icy roofs, circus boy.”

“If we find a pile of bones on the pavement we’ll leave some roses,” Charlie sniffed, and the boys politely pretended it was because of snootiness.

…

Marshal Brüsh, a German man with an eye for opportunity and a hand for crime, established the Gotham Tithe in 1934. He balanced the books for the Waltz family when their _completely law abiding and reputable_ company established itself in Gotham. Brüsh noticed the swath of pickpockets and street urchins flooding the streets during the Great Depression and began thinking up ways to make a profit. Before this time the Waltz family like many other families either forcibly indoctrinated or killed the urchins who clogged up their neighborhood.

These actions were done less from a sense of inhumanity and cruelty but an inclination to view street urchins as security threats for their notorious predilection to bribery and cheap loyalty. They often broke into mansions and stole the fine silver and stray wine bottles. On one memorable occasion, they made off with the plans for a raid on the Docks, which at that time were firmly in the hands of the French Gang, the Marquis.

Brüsh quickly formulated a plan to put the street children to good use. After discussing it with the head of the Waltz family, Brüsh went to the gangs and Families of Gotham and proposed a Tithe, twice per year, on all children earning money from the streets through cons, pick pocketing, prostitution, errand running, or pigeon runs.

The Tithe was originally set to two dollars and ten cents a person per year, which at that time had the equivalent purchasing value of fifty four dollars dollars. The money was turned over to whichever gang owned or claimed the territory where the children worked. Only those who worked with a specific gang as loyal and faithful comrades were spared Tithing.

The punishment for defiance was swift and brutal.

Immediately, the number of children working the streets dropped. Few children could afford the two-dollar tax even once per year, much less twice. Children quickly picked gangs and territories to offer their loyalty. The gangs and families received loyal workers and money and the street children who could not afford the tithe left or were beaten into submission.

It was genius.

As inflation continued, the gangs raised the price with the buying value. Two dollars became six. Six became eleven. Eleven became twenty. Twenty became twenty-six. And eventually, twenty-six became fifty-four.

The rule of the Tithe went like this – two dollars (inflated to fifty-four dollars) per head. An exception was given if the children came from the same family, in which case it was two dollars for the first head, and forty cents per additional head (which was eventually lifted up to thirty dollars). In the manner of street children, the natural inclination and practicality of banding together for food, shelter, warmth and protection naturally flowed into a concept of “claiming” each other.

Robin, through his natural leadership, affable personality, and compassion gained a large brood of children through a variety of circumstance. Robin was, as Charlie put it, incapable of indifference. Bluebell phrased it less eloquently, saying that “Rob is a fuckin’ bleeding heart who can’t keep his damned nose out of anyone’s wretched business long enough for them to sort it out for them-fuckin’-selves.”

In total, Robin had nineteen kids. Six of them were orphans, eight of them had single parents, and three of them had both parents but were struggling to make ends meet. Seven of these were pickpockets, four of them worked as pigeons, three of them were shoe shiners, one worked illegally at a restaurant, and five were prostitutes. All of them were under fourteen. The youngest was six.

The snow got thicker as Robin scrambled his way across Gotham. The residents of lower Gotham were more than accustomed to the small lithe boy who slid down their rooftops, swung into their homes via the balcony rails and dashed out their front door into the neighbors, where he jumped and slid down a railing onto someone else’s porch.

“Robin,” One mother said, wrangling her children out of their coats. “Would you mind taking some brownies to B12 for me? You can have one as a tip.”

Robin chirped his thanks and grabbed the platter on the table with one hand while he stuffed a brownie in his mouth with the other. “Is that all?”

“Hm…,” the woman said. “Could you also tell Mr. Graham – he’s in C19 – that we’d love to have him for dinner on Tuesday.”

“Sure thing,” Robin said, backing out the door. He paused for a second to check the apartment number then scurried on, shouting a “Have a Merry Christmas!” over his shoulder.

The woman “mmhm’ed,” already focused on cleaning snot from her daughter’s face. Robin grinned and waved at her son instead, who shyly wiggled his fingers back. Robin dropped the brownies off with the harried single father at B12 and used the man’s fire escape to scramble his way up to C19, where the Mr. Graham accepted the invitation with joyful thanks and quickly rushed to brush his hair. Robin watched the drama in amusement but continued on. The night was growing darker.

He was still laughing a little at B11’s little drama with C19 and B12 when he felt a gentle tug on his coat lining followed by a drop in weight. The pure shock of someone picking _his_ pocket (or rather, cutting a small hole into his coat to let his collection drop out), much less on the slippery rooftops of Gotham, made him stiffen. His jerk gave him away and the thief booked it to the nearest fire escape wallet in hand.

Robin sprang forward and snagged the kid’s knees. The kid fell but tucked his roll so that he flipped over and kicked Robin in the gut. The kid fought like a wild cat, biting, scratching, clawing, and pinching but never screaming, his lips pressed into a fine white line. Robin pressed down all of his teenage weight to pin him but the kid just fought harder until eventually, with a timed bite to Robin’s hand and a heel to his jaw, the brat squirmed free and jumped from the roof onto the house below.

Robin groaned for a moment, his bruises and gravel burn flared into a dull ache. The realization that the stolen wallet had most of his Tithe money bloomed to the forefront of his mind as panic iced his gut. “Shit.” He breathed, wide eyed. “Shit, shit, shit.” He scrambled up and darted to the edge of the rooftop in time to see the kid jump into the Gotham river. “Shit.”

…

Pierre Bourdieu, a French anthropologist, socialist and philosopher, theorized that there were three types of capital in the world: social, cultural and economic.

Social capital is based on whom you know and how you can use your connections.

Cultural capital is your _habitus_ , or what you know instinctively, such as how to make ends meet on the street or which fork to use first or how to greet someone in different situations.

Economic is what you have of value.

Bourdieu theorized that one form of capital could be exchanged for another. You can use your economic capital, for example, to go to college and get social capital. Or, your can use who you know (social capital) to get a well paying job (economic capital). He went on to say that the wealthy are rich in economic and cultural capital, but the poor are wealthy in social capital.

In situations where money is scarce, the poor band together.

…

Runners had a dangerous job.

The other name for runners is pigeons.

…

When the circus lost custody of him Robin moved from his parent’s trailer with its bright posters and the ceramic elephant on the dresser to a room that was huge and lonely and empty. He could stand in the middle of the room and stretch out as far as he could and not touch either wall. He missed his dad’s heavy breathing and the glint of his mom’s eyes twinkling at him from behind the curtain when she lay down after a long day. His extended family hugged him long and hard, their faces harsh and grim as they looked at the social workers that glared back with equal ferocity, their eyes lingering with disproval on the other circus brats.

Lost in a big city and passed from foster home to foster home, it was easy for Robin to fall in with kids just as misplaced as he was. They banded together in the hallways of dirty apartment complexes, used their shoes for goal posts as they kicked coke cans down the streets, and talked with admiration of the older boys in their neighborhood.

“Alan got taken in by the Vixens,” one of them would say, hushed so that the adults couldn’t hear them. “I heard he got into a rumble down by the bridge. Manny says’ he’s got a big scar down his arm now.”

The boys ooh’ed and all wished they had a big scar to show off. “Didja hear about Joe?” another would say, bouncing on the concrete steps that led up to the apartment.

“Which one?”

“The bald one.”

“With the lip ring?”

“No, the black one.”

“Oh. What about him?”

“Rumor has it he left his gang and joined some kind of afterschool program. His neighbor told me he’s moving away ‘cause his mom don’t want him to be in a gang.”

The boys hissed. “Chicken,” one spat.

“But it’s his mom,” another said cautiously. The other kids rolled their eyes and sighed, shooting each other exasperated looks that spoke clearly of their friend’s naiveté. They quickly set about correcting him with their nine-year-old wisdom.

“Hey, birdbrain, don’t you know the gangs are family around here? They got our backs. Keep us from the tithe. There’s no one tougher than a banger. Who’s got your back if the Black’s come for a rumble? Not the cops, that’s for sure. Heck, the some of the Blacks jumped my brother last year and it sure weren’t my old man who got them back. The Crows took care of the punks real quick and they haven’t messed with the kids on the yard since.”

“Yeah,” the cautious boy said, reassured. “The Crows are the only real men around here.”

“That’s for sure. _I’d_ never leave my gang cause of a sissy school thing. We don’t need traitors like him around here anyhow.” The boys murmured in agreement and ran off to play cops and robbers, but in this game the robbers always won and the cops stayed dead.

…

Robin swallowed to wet his mouth and tried to stand taller. Bobby’s brother was the newest vice-captain of the Red Crows and Bobby was showing him off to his friends. Aaron was tall with strong hands that were bruised on the knuckles and a soft voice, charisma flowing from every pore. He was everything Robin wanted to be. “And this is Robin,” Bobby introduced him. “Well, not actually, but Robin’s better than his real name.”

Aaron looks at Robin with renewed interest. The tattoo climbing up his neck stretched as his head tilted. It was the picture of a Crow breaking through a bloody thorn patch. “You’re the little circus boy, right? The one that’s always flipping over the rooftops.”

Robin flushed, pleased that Aaron Roz recognized him. Rumor had it that when Aaron was fourteen he walked up to Two-Face and told him to get off the Crows turf before he broke his kneecaps. True or not, it launched Aaron to instant fame. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Is it true you can get across the Bridge in ten minutes?” Aaron crouched down in front of him, eyes intent and smile friendly. His teeth were white and straight except for the gap where someone knocked out his molar in a rumble. “I have a bet with some friends and they said you couldn’t do it.”

Robin looked Aaron right in the eye and said, “I can do it in seven.”

Aaron laughed and waved it off as a childish boast. “Hey, no need to brag. No honor involved, it was just a bet.”

“I can do it in seven,” Robin repeated with his chin up. “Or I owe you the next Tithe.”

The boys around him fell silent. Aaron’s eyes were sharp as he draped an arm around Robin’s shoulder and pulled him close. “Listen, Rob, you look like a good kid so I’m gonna give you some advice. Here in the streets a man’s word is all he’s got and if you give it, you keep it. So if you tell me that you can do it in seven, I believe you. I really do. So tell you what – I’m gonna bet on you. I’m gonna go up to my friends, introduce you and say, “Pals, this here is my friend Robin, and he can make it across the river in seven minutes.”’

He paused and waved his hand. “No Tithe, just forget about that. Just you and me, kid, against those boys over there.” He paused and his tone changed and his hand tightened on Robin’s shoulder. “But here’s the thing – a man who can’t keep his word is nothing. Are you nothing, Robin?”

“Seven minutes or nothing.” Robin repeated. “And I start from the Batfry.”

…

The Batfry was a tall clock tower set in the middle of Crime Alley, so named because the Batman liked to use it as his roost on quiet nights, or so said the no few criminals who tried to use it for a hideaway and woke up to find themselves in jail.  It was also twenty-four minutes away from the River by foot and seventeen minutes away by car.

Robin made it in six minutes and fifty-one seconds by rooftop.

When he landed on the other side, out of breath, bleeding from a scrape on his knee, parched and flushed, Aaron clapped him on the shoulder, tugged him close and said, “You and me are gonna have a really good run, kid.”

It was warm in Aaron’s sunlight when the teen dragged him up to the other vice-captains, ruffled a hand through his hair and crowed, “See! I told you this little Robin could fly!”

Robin felt warm all the way to his toes.

…

Runners that carried outside a gang were called Pigeons, after the carrier pigeons used in World War II. They had an equally high a death rate. More Runners die a year in Gotham than the death count of the Gotham Police Force, brought down by rival gangs working to intercept enemy messages or druggies haggling for a little free coke. In the time Robin spent as a runner he was shot at three times and was grazed once. The bullet hit the bricks beside him and blew off shrapnel that sliced Robin’s face. He has a small hairline scar on his cheek, just under his cheekbone.

Runners are also called Pigeons because for all that Gotham knows the Great Wars are still ongoing. The soldiers just got younger and their territories smaller.

…

Robin sat on the rooftop and stared in silence down at the gloom of Gotham. In the distance Wayne Towers stood like a beacon of hope and mockery. If he stretched out his hand, Robin could close his fist around the Tower. He grinned and pretended it was a syringe he plunged into his arm. His dreams – of someday getting out of here – his daydreams – of walking into that Tower and amazing them all with how brilliant and classy and talented he was – were as real as the daydreams of a heroin addict.

The giggle that broke out surprised him. He clamped a hand down on his mouth but the giggles wormed their way out like sobs. He gave up and laughed, letting his head fall back. “God,” he said through his giggles. “God, how is this fair?” There was no answer and he wasn’t expecting one. Robin laughed out the hysteria until the trembles shaking his body stopped hurting then pushed himself to his feet and started picking his way home.

The sun had long since slipped beyond the bay and Gotham was decked out in her lights, the blinking of traffic lights a staccato off beat to the jazz that floated up from one of the apartments. Robin saw a man – dark skinned, curly hair cropped short, mustache peppered with grey, his dock suit sweat stained and dirty – fold himself into the arms of a woman – her skin was chocolate, her hair tied back by a vibrant headscarf, her mouth dropping in an open smile. The man folded himself into her, buried his face in the nape of her neck as she slowly rocked in a circle. In the distance, sirens wailed and a fog light lit the polluted sky with the sign of the Bat.

He swung down into Crime Alley by a gutter pipe and nonchalantly blended in with the night crowed. He kept his fingers to himself. The girl he wanted to see was standing on one of the corners in a mini-skirt and fishnet stockings despite the cold. Her only concession to the snow was a shawl that hung off her shoulders so the line of a bra she didn’t need was clearly visible. A man stopped to touch her but she saw Robin and waved him off.

“Rob!” she said. She didn’t move toward him, but given her footwear Robin didn’t blame her.

“Hey Snaps,” Robin said. He crouched down and pulled the shawl up around her shoulders. “What are you doing out here? I thought Bill said you didn’t have to work the nights anymore.

“Uhg,” Snaps sniffed. “He an’ Joyce are goin’ at it with the drink again so the lot of us decided to get out before they tried to tie us.” Robin shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around her. “And then Mike was like – well, if we’re gonna be out here anyway we might as well get some jobs, since it might keep us warm and –“

“Why didn’t you go stay with Helen?” Robin said. He bent down and picked her up. She was small for eleven so his coat covered most of her legs when she sat in his arms.

“Selena’s girls were getting roughed up by some of the Family, so she told us not to come over tonight.” Robin carried her into one of the hotels that lined the street. The man at the desk leered at her but blanched when Robin glared back. He set her down on one of the couches and knelt in front of her so that he could pick up her legs and rub warmth back into them. “Mike said the family was gonna try an’ take her down, which is just stupid ‘cause everyone knows Selena is the best protector in Crime Alley. I was talking to one of Helen’s friends yesterday and she said that if Selena knew about Bill I’d be out of here before you…” the girl drifted off, her gaze on something just over Robin’s shoulder.

Robin turned and looked around but the room was empty. He turned back and snapped his fingers under her nose. The girl jerked back into focus and grinned at him. “…can say figidiwumpsa. Isn’t that a funny word? One of the guys who bought me taught it to me. He showed me a picture of his daughter. She’s a little younger than me and…” Snaps blinked. “Hey Rob, it’s been a while. Why haven’t you been coming by? I told you about figidiwumpsa, right? Some guy I met taught me. He was just passing by.”

Robin nodded and kept rubbing the blood back into her feet. “Snaps, you said your mom was still living with Ryan, right?”

“My mom?” Snaps’ eyes focused over his shoulder. “Mom, mom, mom… That’s a funny word. You mean Ma’am?”

Robin nodded without looking up. “Yeah. Is she still making you work for Ryan?”

Snaps pulled her feet away from his hands and tucked her knees under her chin. She looked through him. Robin didn’t snap his fingers under her nose until her knuckles were white and there were bruises forming under her grip. “Ma’am.” She repeated softly. “Ma’am says I should be grateful Bill lets us stay. Her. Us. Bill says that Ma’am still owes him fifty grand for the loan he gave her when she had me. I asked him what fifty grand was and he said it was more than I’d make in my life but that didn’t really answer my question so I asked one of the guys who visit me and they said—“

Robin stopped her with a finger on her mouth. “That’s okay, Snaps. I get it.” His fingers slid down and brushed some hair away from her mouth. Snaps was a chubby girl. She ate at McDonalds every day for lunch and dinner because it was cheap and easy. Her eyes were big and brown. She had track marks up and down her elbow. For a moment Robin let himself imagine what she could look like in a week. In a week her cheek would be busted, maybe some of her teeth loose. She’d walk with a limp and bruised ribs.

Unless he cut someone loose he didn’t have enough to pay her Tithe and her mother wouldn’t shell out a dime. Neither would Brooke’s pimp, or Mark and Alan’s parents, or Kate’s. Vinnie was going to be fourteen soon – she’d be able to get a real job since her pimp was weak when fists were aimed his way. Also, Rob was pretty sure Vinnie had a small stash saved up for Just In Case.

“Rob?” Robin snapped back into the present. Snaps leaned up and pressed her forehead to his. “Who’s Batman?”

“What?” his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What, Snaps?”

“Batman.” She said simply. “Ryan was talking about him today. He seemed really scared and he made me come in for a whole day.”

“He’s…” Robin leaned back and scrubbed his face. “He’s a good guy. He protects Gotham from bad guys like the Joker and…” Snaps blinked away. Robin stopped, snapped his fingers under her nose, and tried again. “You know when the clown guy tried to hurt a lot of people? Well, Batman stops people like that. He stops people who try to hurt each other.”

Snaps nodded thoughtfully and said, “So are you Batman?”

“Me?”

“Uh-hu.”

The muscle in Robin’s jaw jumped. “No,” he rasped. “No, Snaps. I’m not Batman.”

…

The Red Crows headquarters was a small office off 11th and Darcy. If not for the beer bottles on the parking lot and the large gangbangers glaring at anyone wandering too close it seemed perfectly reputable. Robin leaned against one of the cars in the lot and waited. A few of the guards eyed him, but Robin stared back with nonchalant distain whenever one made a move toward him.

Aaron hadn’t changed in the last six years. His hair was a little longer and shaved in jagged lines that resembled cornrows. His eyes were still strong and even from a distance Robin felt the pull to fall in line. Usually this was the part where he walked away. This was the part where Aaron looked up and Robin was gone, scared of the pull to a place and circumstance once called home. This time he stayed and watched Aaron’s face brighten.

“Rob?” The older boy said, pausing midstride.  Robin pushed off the car and nodded with a smile.

“Hey. It’s been a while.”

Aaron tucked his hands into his jeans, carefully blank, but Robin could read his glee in the sideward twitch of his mouth. “A while is when you don’t come to school for a month or you go for Christmas vacation. ‘A while’ isn’t two years where you fall off the grid.”

“You knew where I was,” Robin said.

Aaron paused and then grinned smugly. He clapped an arm around Robin’s shoulder and laughed as he started walking them toward the office building. “That’s true. How’s the pick pocketing gig? Is it the noble path you were looking when you left us?”

Robin’s smile remained steady. “Naturally. But I have to speak to you, Aaron.”

“Sure,” Aaron nodded, hand waving as they easily bypassed the guards.

“In private.” Robin clarified.

Aaron’s smile faded and he opened a door into a small lounge that was filled with teens doping up. “Are you going to make my life difficult, little bird?” he said as he thumbed a finger over his shoulder. The people lounging around immediately got up and left.

Robin took a deep breath and shrugged off Aaron’s arm. For a moment he stood unchained, the smoke of the room heady, before the weight settled across his shoulder. Robin squeezed his eyes shut and let his hand tighten into a fist. He ran through his options, thought about running, and once again came to the conclusion that this was the only way. “I can’t make the Tithe.”

In the silence his ears started ringing. He took a deep breath.

Aaron hit like a Mack truck. Robin flowed with the blow. His legs gave out. Aaron’s kick caught him as he was falling and sent him crashing into the wall. “I’m sorry,” Aaron said sweetly, still smiling. “I thought I heard you say you couldn’t make the Tithe, but that’s ridiculous.” He walked over to Robin’s crumpled form and pressed a foot down on Robin’s chest. “Care to correct me?” Robin coughed weakly and tried to roll away, but Aaron pressed down firmly, leaned down and slapped him across the face. “Robin? Answer me, Robin.”

Robin’s hands scrambled at Aaron’s boot, trying to push it off, a stone faced Aaron to pressed down harder. “I don’t…” Robin gasped. “…have the money.”

“Now that’s gotta be a lie. Are you trying to sticker me, Robs? Everyone knows the Robbing Robin is gold.” Aaron’s mouth twisted into something very ugly. In one smooth motion he stepped of Robin, picked him up and slammed him into the wall. “Are you trying to sticker _me?”_ He swung the younger boy and let crash into the table. Cocaine, beer and cards flew into the air and fluttered down around the groaning boy. Robin wrapped a protective arm around his ribs and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “I… I have…Some kid picked me then jumped off into the goddamn Gotham River. Do you think I’d be here if I had _any_ other choice.” He tried so hard, so goddamn hard, to leave the gangs behind. He’d bought his way out; let them persecute him as a traitor, enduring beatings without fighting back, paid every Tithe faithfully. He’d run errands for two years, called in favors, made Aaron stand up against the Captain so that the Captain would let Robin go without killing him.

“After everything you did, everything _I_ did you’re just calling it quits? Just like that?”

Robin pushed himself up and snarled, “Do you think I’d be here if I had any other choice?”

Aaron laughed and kicked him again. “All this. All this for _nothing_. For a couple of kids, let’s be real, right? Are gonna be dead in a gutter soon. Robin, I gave up being the _captain’s_ right hand for you to be free, not for you to run around for a few years and then come back to the nest.”

Robin laughed despite his ribs. “Liar,” he gasped. “Liar. You let me go because you knew I’d owe you. You always knew I’d end up here.”

Aaron scowled at him then broke into a wide grin. “Well, well, the birdbrain finally learned something about how the streets work. Will you look at that!”

Robin spit out some more blood and rolled onto his hands and knees. “How do you want to play this, Aaron?”

“Oh,” Aaron said as he sat down on a nearby couch and crossed his legs. “I think this is going right where I want it. Let me savor the moment, huh? I finally clipped the Robin’s wings.” His leg flashed out and knocked Robin’s arms out from under him. The boy fell hard on his side. The breath fled in a pained gasp as Robin curled up to protect his ribs. “Do you know how many people have tried to do that since you joined the gang?”

Robin glared at him. “And look at that,” he said bitterly. “The one guy who was supposed to protect me is the one who broke my wings. What happened to the vice-captain who protected his own?”

“You’re not one of mine anymore, Rob,” Aaron shrugged. “You left, remember? And I took the heat for it. Sure, I knew you’d be back – you can’t help yourself. None of us can. I mean, for most of us its cause the gang’s the best family we’d ever known, but you…You it’s because you’re a fucking bleeding heart.”

“Now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?”

“I have plans for a runner that’s not directly tied to the gang,” Aaron said calmly. “I intend to use you until you dry up and fall over, Rob. There are no second chances from here. You belong to the Red Crows. And you belong to me.”

…

Robin’s ribs hurt too much to climb onto the rooftops, his back and legs ached with every step and from the heat around his eyes he knew he must look like a raccoon but he’d done it. He made sure that the Reds wouldn’t touch any of his kids. Not if there were nineteen of them. Not if there were thirty. As long as he was loyal and alive the kids were safe.

He limped his way to Bluebell’s lurking grounds and collapsed onto some bags of trash. It took Blue all of a minute to find him. “Fuck it all,” he breathed, his hands hovering over his friend because he was too scared to touch him. “Robin, what did you do?”

Robin grinned up at his friend, punch drunk and said, “Guess what, Blue? I’m Batman.”


	2. Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason Todd: Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair Warning: The Robbin' Robin verse plays fast and loose with canon rules, but since DC has no respect for those rules anyway, I'm not much bothered.

 

* * *

 

 

Not all women are meant to be mothers.

 

_________

 

Catherine Todd loved her son.

When he thought about her, Jason remembered gentle hands pulling the covers up to his chin. She used to read to him; her smoke roughened voice rose and fell as she read My Side of the Mountain or The Hardy Boys, all rented from the local library. Before she turned the lights off she pressed chapped, cracked lips against his forehead. “I love you. Sleep tight.”

He also remembered days when she refused to get out of bed. Sometimes he came home from school and found her laying in the corner, eyes hazy from the drugs. Her moods swung rapidly from cheerful and playful to angry and vitriolic. Once she spent two month’s salary and the security deposit buying cocaine and meth.

Catherine Todd loved her son.

She just loved the drugs more.

 

_________

 

Jason loved his building.

His residents were awesome. Mrs. Cooper used to be a bank robber before she got pregnant. She taught him how to pick locks and open a safe by touch. Jake Ross had an encyclopedic memory for the greatest heists in history, for the places that sold stuff real cheap, for quick and easy ways to make ends meet. Laurie Baker, the ninety-year-old granny on the first floor, taught him how to use an unbent wire hanger to open a locked car.

But Jason’s favorite part was the roof.

Jason’s apartment building was an old brown house apartment complex set two blocks outside Crime Alley. It was three blocks from the river, next to a bend where the current pushed all the chemicals and waste from the factories and sewage. On hot days, the stench threatened to bowl him over. Catherine shoved rags in the cracks of the doors and windows and sprayed perfume around the house, but all that did was make it smell like sewage and concentrated flower.

Jason snuck out of the house and climbed up to the flat top above. No one came up here. He sat with his back against the border wall and let the breeze pass over him. He dug into his stash of comic books, soda, and cookies and stayed for hours.

 

___________

 

Willis Todd worked at one of the loading bays down Carter South, where the train tracks met the waterfront. The long hours gave him a strong back, strong arms, and weary character. He was a rough man, the product of lousy upbringing, street logic, and poor schooling combined with a keen intelligence and accumulated skills. If you wanted a job done and done right, no questions asked, you went to Willis Todd.

Willis was nasty, bitter, angry and blunt, a man who took out his helplessness and rage on his wife’s face and his son’s back, but he knew his place and was smart enough to keep his head down. He was in and out of prison so often he saw Jason in stages: he missed years three through five, but was there for Jason’s sixth birthday and halfway through his seventh. He was in the pen for his eighth and ninth, and spent Jason’s tenth birthday arguing a parole violation in court.

Jason learned knife work from his dad. “A small sharp blade is better than a large dull one,” Willis said as he ran an old fashioned whetstone across the blade of his whittling knife. “Cops don’t take it off you and it’s easy to hide.” He stood behind Jason, warm hands on his wrists over the bruises Willis left that morning and guided his arms in an arch. “Slice, don’t stab. Stabbings for amateurs. And if you stab with a switch blade all you’re gonna get is a couple of sliced off fingers.”

He guided Jason’s hand. “Like this. One, two, three. Very good!”

Sometimes, when the day went bad, when Penguin or Two-Face or whoever it was Dad was working for this week went to prison without paying their henchmen, Willis would take Jason out and teach him how to throw. He pinned up a Batman poster on a cardboard box and count his paces to the dumpsters. “You need to know how many revolutions your knife spins. No fancy way to know that until you start throwing. Don’t throw knives sharp on the blade, that’s a good way to cut your hand. Just make sure the tip’s sharp.”

And lastly, “Don’t go flashing your blade every which way. No one needs to see it, just keep it between you and their gut.”

When Jason was eleven, Willis got caught with the rest of Two Face’s gang. First day in prison someone made a shiv out of a plastic toothbrush and broke it off between Willis’s ribs. As he lay bleeding, screaming in his own shit and blood, someone wrapped a thin wire around his throat and twisted tight.

The day after his mom got The Phone Call, Jason climbed up to the rooftop and lay stretched out on the concrete. Above him Gotham’s cloudy skies curled and entwined. Occasionally he saw the bright glow of the sun.

He didn’t cry.

 

_________

 

Maybe that’s when it started.

Maybe it started with a lonely boy laying on concrete staring at the sky wondering if his dad managed to con his way into heaven, wondering if he’d ever smell him again, or feel his dad’s laugh echoing through his chest. Maybe it was that sickening lurch of relief when he thought of Willis never darkening his bedroom door again.

Maybe it started the second Jason looked up at the sky and swore he wouldn’t be like Willis Todd, not if he lived to a hundred, not if he lived to twelve. He wouldn’t be some two-bit hood shanked because his boss was afraid of him talking.

Or maybe it started ten minutes later.

Maybe it started with the scuff of sneakers on concrete, the clang of someone dropping onto a fire escape. Jason sat up and looked over the ledge. A young man, fifteen or so, scrambled up the wall of 1416 Parks, pushed off the edge and caught himself on the window of Apartment 7B, 1425 York. The young man held himself up by his arms and elbow and knocked on the glass. “Mrs. K! Hey! Mrs. K! I got a delivery for you.”

Someone jerked the window open. A man, balding with lipstick across his mouth and eyes lined in khol stuck his head out. “What?” His eyes landed on the teen and narrowed. “Oh, it’s you. How the hell did you get up here?”

“Trade secret,” the teen responded with a grin. “Delivery for you, courtesy of Big Ben.”

“No, seriously, how did you get up here? Can anyone do that?”

The teenager snorted. He was still hanging from the ledge, easy as you please, a seven-story drop under his feet. “Please. Now, you want the stuff or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I want it.” The man dug out his wallet. “How much?”

“Twenty for delivery.” The man’s face mottled. “Twenty? Twenty, you little—“

“What?” The teen snipped back. “It’s not like I could just waltz through the front door, am I right? Now, you gonna pay me or what?”

Mrs. K grumbled but fished out two tenners. “Here. I thought you weren’t running anymore?”

“I’m not, hence the delivery fee.” The teenager reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small box wrapped in white paper. “Keep up, dudette.”

The man grumped, “Yeah, yeah.” He grabbed the package and slammed the window closed.

The teen let go of the ledge. Jason’s breath caught in his throat, his heart leaped to choke him as the boy dropped. Jason ran to the ledge, helpless but to watch, fingers scraping into concrete. The teen twisted, laughed, and caught himself on the window two floors below. He looked up at Jason winked. As first meetings went it was certainly memorable.

Or maybe it started a few days later, when Jason’s unsubtle questions summoned fond smiles and fingers ruffling his hair. “That’s Robin, quickest pigeon in Gotham,” Laurie said as she passed him the brownie bowl. “He’s quite the charmer, isn’t he?"

“He used to run for the Crows,” Ross said when asked. “But he left that a few years ago. Smartest thing the boy ever did if you ask me. He stops by sometimes to flirt with Sharon Chickham.”

A little hero worship. A little harmless awe. That should have been the end of it.

If you asked Jason, it started on a warm July afternoon as the sun sank behind the teeth of Gotham’s broken silhouette. It started with a flame under a spoon. It started with his mother pushing up her sleeve and sliding a needle into her vein. It started with a quiet gasp that turned into shallow breath. It started, as many things do, with death.

 

_________

 

The superintendent called the cops and social services came with them.

They let Jason pack one trash bag of clothes. He stuffed it with pants and shirts but he forgot to pack underwear or socks. He packed My Side of the Mountain but the Social Worker confiscated it to return to the library. Her hand was thin and hard, her lips creased. This was old hat to her; Jason was just another one of Gotham’s many orphans.

Saint Michael’s Home of Unveiling Grace was located at the crossing of Hope St. and Wayne Ave, on a corner that had never seen hope or any Wayne contribution. The building used to be an apartment building back in the 20’s, but was gutted and renovated after World War I to become a home for the unending stream of orphans or other unfortunate children stranded in Mother Gotham’s embrace.

Jason didn’t stay long. As soon as he could he picked up his bag of junk and escaped back home. He crawled in through the cracks and nooks of the building, ducked through the cordoned off door to get inside the apartment. He ransacked it looking for any spare change, any cash his mom hid and forgot about. He found ten dollars under the loose floorboard in his bedroom and thirty dollars taped against the blades of the ceiling fan. He slipped out the front door and into the street.

He took one more minute to look at the apartment building, his throat tight, but he couldn’t stay here.

“People always return to their home ground,” Bennie Borsh in Apartment 221 told him after his mother died, her fingers sliding through his hair. “If you want to be free, Jason, don’t come back here.”

He waited until the work traffic was done before creeping into the other apartments. He didn’t touch their money pockets. He stole a pillow, a few throw blankets, and a sleeping bag. The street yawned open and hungry, stretched like the throat of a giant and Jason rubbed his forehead and tried to figure out where to go.

He made his way to the Warehouse Strip that lined the waterfronts. Back during the Second World War, industry had flourished as Gotham churched out ships, flying machines, guns and bombs. The Government and Iron companies set up huge warehouses where they piled scrap metal to be melted into bomb casings or tank barrels. After the war ended the rest of the country kept producing but industry in Gotham bled away, the only evidence a strip of half rotten warehouses two miles wide and thirty miles long.

Criminals infested them like rats. Orphans and runaways crept up into the rafters and created insulated nests with newspaper and trash. They were prime real estate for anyone who lacked two quarters to rub together. It took him a while to find an unoccupied nest. He wasn’t part of any of the gangs, and the street rats formed their own protective cliques. Jason eventually found himself in front of an old bonded warehouse.

He laid out his blankets in the corner next to the door, where no one would spot him at first glance so he could sneak out if he needed to. Then he set traps. He tied a string of cans along the ledge of the windows, broke a bottle and scattered glass long the seams of the building so if someone cut the metal open they’d crawl into shards, and tied a trip wire to a pile of apple boxes. He found some boards with rusty nails sticking out. He pulled the nails and hammered them into a single board, which he laid across the truck entrance. Lastly he sharpened his knife until it could cut through a floating string and slept with it pressed against his side.

The warehouse echoed. The temperature dropped but it was the height of summer so it felt good when the concrete leeched heat from him. Occasionally he heard someone walking around outside, heard the rumble of motorcycles, or the rise and fall of someone arguing. Once he heard gunshots, but no one ran in so he didn’t worry about it. In the morning he made his way to crime alley and started bringing in bank.

Jason quickly realized he’d get nowhere as a pickpocket. His fingers were quick and nimble, but few people carried cash anymore and the cameras made credit cards too risky. He was carefully considering breaking in and entering when he noticed a line of nice cars parked just outside Crime Alley. He picked the locks and stuffed his garbage bag with everything within reach – the radios, CDs, spare change, cast off jackets, jewelry, thermoses and more. He picked the trunk and found a spare and a tire iron. He rolled the tire into a back alley and locked the trunk after him. Then he found a spare perch and waited.

He counted the minutes until a nicely dressed man wandered out of the alley, still zipping up his slacks. The man got into the car, sat for half a minute, then shot up. “What the hell!”

Jason ducked farther into the shadows. He watched the man rant and rave. He watched the man kick his tires. He watched the man pull out a cell phone, say, “Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” and put it back in his pocket. He got in the car and drove away.

Jason was a bright kid. He knew exactly why this guy was here. He also knew that he couldn’t call the police if he didn’t want to get arrested for solicitation. Given where he came from, he probably could be written up for solicitation of a minor. Maybe if he regularly jacked stuff from in front of crime alley the Johns would drop off and the pimps would come after Jason for ruining their business. Jason looked down at the loot in front of him and realized something else.

He didn’t care.

 

__________

 

 

Jason sold his stuff to the various pawnshops and illicit business areas that bought obviously stolen goods at pennies and sold them back for dollars. He made good bank, about fifty to a hundred dollars on a good week. However, after a month people stopped parking their cars so close to the Alley. They parked them in Pete’s Parking Garage, or the Supermarket parking lot where there were cameras, or watchmen, or a steady stream of traffic.

Jason got faster, stronger, smarter.

Hitting up cars for spare items was a common enough for the lowlife crook. For most it offered enough cash for a quick meal, or maybe helped them with that last few bucks for the rent. To really make bank you had to have a small army walking the streets and a few trusted dealers to sell to. Jason started running errands for the pawnshop at three dollars a run. Nothing dangerous. He wasn’t crazy or desperate to turn pigeon, but the extra dollars got him an Icee from McDonald's sometimes or hot chocolate as the weather turned colder.

July faded into August, which faded into October. In October, the Panthers moved into the warehouse district and Jason moved out.

As winter set in, Jason sought warmer spots to rest. He huddled under the exhaust and steam outlets of restaurant kitchens. He spent precious dollars and dimes on hot chocolate so he could linger in the warmth of coffee shops or bookstores or malls. However, as his clothes began to fray, the employees began to watch him, carefully following him around the stores and hovering over his table. Stronger, older homeless men and women began taking cover in the exhaust ports.

Jason found himself wandering in his old neighborhood, retracing familiar steps in a hollow attempt to find comfort. He looked up and realized he was in front of the old Gotham Public Library. Jason stood still in front of the twelve concrete steps leading up to glass revolving doors. Some well-meaning donor commissioned a bronze figurine of a mother and child reading a large book opened across their laps. Tradition was for people to rub their fingers across the mother’s lips, or across the elaborate ‘T’ of the upraised ‘The’ on the book page. It was supposed to bring good fortune. Her smile gleamed gold against the tarnished brown of her skin.

Jason slunk up the steps and slipped inside. He pressed his hands deep into his pockets, shoulders pulled up to his ears. The redheaded librarian at the front desk watched him, eyes lingering on his pants leg, where he had his pocketknife stashed in his sock. Her lips pressed into a thin red line, but she didn’t say anything. She was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen with rectangular glasses perched on her nose.

Jason wandered the shelves, his fingers running across the backs of the books. He didn’t have a clear goal in mind until he realized he was standing in front of Authors section Ge-Go, his fingers resting on the spine of My Side of the Mountain. He flipped open the back cover. There was a familiar red note scribbled in the margins by an unfamiliar hand. Jason had memorized the curves of the ‘a’, the slide of the ‘k’ months ago while resting against his mother’s shoulder, her voice echoing into his ear through her rib cage.

Jason bit his lip to still the burning in his eyes. He tucked the book under his arm to take with him, but noticed a small metal sticker on the back before he tried to smuggle it out the Library. Instead he curled into one of the uncomfortable sofas and started to read, finger tracing the words so he wouldn’t lose his place, mouth moving silently as he sounded out the syllables. Jason never claimed to be book smart, and the only good thing about being homeless was the lack of required schooling, but this book was the last project his mom started with him so he was determined to finish.

It was difficult. Several times he almost threw the book away in frustration, but he forced himself to settle deeper, hunch over just a little more to concentrate on the –ish’s and the qui—, the different sounds of ‘a’ and the odd exceptions. It was pure, stubborn, pig-headed determination that kept him going from one chapter to the next.

Somewhere in the middle of chapter seven, Jason looked up to see the redheaded librarian watching him from the stacks. She had an armload of books held up to her chest, so she probably had an excuse to be there, but at this point Jason had been watched enough to know what a suspicious gaze felt like.

His stomach curled. He wasn’t even doing anything wrong! He hadn’t stolen the book, which he could have. Easy. All he had to do was cut off the back cover. He waited until she returned to shelving books before sliding out of the chair and looking for another more isolated hiding spot. He crept under one of the studying desks in the back corner.

In all honesty, the first time Jason spent the night in the library was an accident. Hours of shivering, of wandering in the cold to keep warm, thirst and mental exhaustion caught up with him. It sapped his energy and strength. The Library was warm, and safe, and dark. Somehow, the night librarian missed him while making her rounds. Jason was so tired he slept through the night and only woke up when the cleaning lady pushed her vacuum cleaner along the isle next to him.

The next time it wasn’t an accident.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jason and Dick were supposed to meet in this, but I guess this is how the cookie crumbled. Three stars for anyone who guesses the other cameo in this chapter. ;D
> 
> I'm breaking one of my rules in posting this chapter, which is never post anything until it's finished. But since I started writing and posting this before I made that rule, maybe it can pass as an exception. I don't know how often this will be updated. It's been a while since I wrote in the fandom, and a lot has changed since then, both in the fandom itself and in me as a writer. However, I promised someone I'd write the next chapter. I still have a vague outline of where this is going, but a lot of questions between points C D and E. I also lost my original outline and a lot of the notes I had on how I wanted this version of Gotham to look. 
> 
> Ah well. Hopefully someone will enjoy it anyway.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated, especially in regards to world building and characterization. It's not beta read, so there's probably issues with verb tenses (my old enemy). Thanks to Ferith12 for the review that got me off my butt to keep writing this.


End file.
